Y files

NBA Predictions!

Mon, 04 Nov 2013 05:54:28 -0500

Yes this is a few days late. But here goes. The best overall team is the HOUSTON ROCKETS. Notwithstanding that fact, the best bet to win the championship is the MIAMI HEAT.

My reasoning is this. In a HEAT-ROCKETS, HEAT-SPURS, or even HEAT-GRIZZLIES finals I would favor the Western Conference contender. But precisely because there are three elite teams in the West plus very good squads from Oklahoma City, Los Angeles, and Dallas the odds of any given team winning the Western Conference Championship are relatively low. By contrast the NETS, BULLS, and PACERS are all overrated in an extremely weak Eastern Conference. The odds of Miami making it to the Finals are overwhelmingly strong, which from an ex ante viewpoint more than compensates for the fact that (barring an amazing Greg Oden comeback) they’ll likely be finals underdogs.

Broadway Downtown on Flickr.

Wed, 10 Jul 2013 17:30:46 -0400

Broadway Downtown on Flickr.

This album is 20 years old!

Mon, 24 Jun 2013 17:04:34 -0400

This album is 20 years old!

One of the 90s finest moments.

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 21:04:20 -0400

One of the 90s finest moments.

Hear me road!

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 15:59:24 -0400

Hear me road!

This whole place was a vacant wasteland what 5 years ago? on...

Wed, 22 May 2013 11:20:46 -0400

This whole place was a vacant wasteland what 5 years ago? on Flickr.

Totally insane that donations to exclusive private schools are...

Tue, 21 May 2013 19:00:17 -0400

Totally insane that donations to exclusive private schools are tax deductible. on Flickr.

Tubthumping - They Might Be Giants & The AV Club Chorus (by...

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:48:28 -0400

Tubthumping - They Might Be Giants & The AV Club Chorus (by ParticleMen)

Blondie, Sunday Girl, French Version (by John Wilson) An...

Mon, 13 May 2013 21:17:37 -0400

Blondie, Sunday Girl, French Version (by John Wilson)

An important illustration of the principle that everything rhymes in French.

The Power of a Good Coincidence

Sun, 12 May 2013 15:34:39 -0400

I suppose I agree with Ezra’s point about The Great Gatsby, namely that if you look at the events of the story in detail it turns out that Gatsby’s downfall is primarily due to an unlikely car accident rather than the working out of metaphysical necessity.

But I guess I’m not sure what kind of criticism this is supposed to be. Restricting ourselves to the domain of Baz Lurman adaptations, Romeo & Juliet has this same quality. Yes, our star cross’d lovers are doomed by family rivalry but the ultimate tragic dénouement involves a remarkable amount of bad timing and miscommunication. Ned Stark’s downfall is a reflection of his tragic excessive reliance on personal honor, but in the details also comes down to a lot of bad timing and unfortunate coincidence. Or suppose Raskolnikov hadn’t mixed up the timing and ended up killing Lizaveta along with Alyona Ivanovna?

The fact that great authors across genres and times rely on coincidence to make their tragic schemes work is telling us that contingency plays a large role in human affairs not that the authors are cheating.

Songs About Oakland

Sat, 11 May 2013 00:01:41 -0400

“Condition Oakland”, Jawbreaker.

“Welcome to Paradise”, Green Day.

“Journey to the End of the East Bay”, Rancid.

I feel like Operation Ivy belongs here but….

The Hold Steady - The Bear and the Maiden Fair (lyrics) (by...

Wed, 08 May 2013 14:55:54 -0400

The Hold Steady - The Bear and the Maiden Fair (lyrics) (by tamuli0nis)

"In its favour, if Google Glass didn’t exist, all these Silicon Valley guys would be having affairs..."

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 17:39:48 -0400

“In its favour, if Google Glass didn’t exist, all these Silicon Valley guys would be having affairs or buying unsuitable motorbikes”

- (via whitemenwearinggoogleglass)

Video

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 14:48:29 -0400

Video

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 14:48:02 -0400

Video

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 14:47:42 -0400

We basically ended up as the majority. #ObamasAmerica

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 18:32:56 -0400

We basically ended up as the majority. #ObamasAmerica

So excited to be heading to a Green Day show on Thursday. First...

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 16:12:29 -0400

So excited to be heading to a Green Day show on Thursday. First band I ever saw live!

Statue of Stephon Marbury in Beijing, China.

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 18:27:44 -0400

Statue of Stephon Marbury in Beijing, China.

Iraq in Retrospect

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 09:49:32 -0400

Clearly invading Iraq was a bad idea and college senior Matt Yglesias was not only mistaken about believing it to be a good idea but was operating under a number of misapprehensions about foreign policy and American politics.

The main not-totally-obvious thing I have to say about this is that the underrated villains in this drama are the leading Democratic Party politicians of the 2002-2003 era. “Because trusted leaders of my political party say so” is of course not a good reason to back any political position. But the evidence is overwhelming that elite signaling and top-down leadership matter for public opinion formation. I remember quite clearly that in arguments around the dining hall people who were (rightly) opposing the invasion would (wrongly) emphasize the Bush Bush Bush factor in their arguments and I would rebut by pointing to Hillary and Bill Clinton, Dick Gephardt and Tom Daschle, John Kerry and John Edwards. Madeleine Albright. The whole crew.

Since that time I’ve gotten to know a lot of liberal or left-wing people who’ve never liked that whole crowd. Which is fine. Those politics aren’t my politics, but in this particular case that political orientation gave people a more clear-eyed view of what was happening. I saw a sharp partisan disagreement about Bush’s tax cuts, plus a reasonably broad consensus about his Iraq gambit.

So what you learn is that this is a pretty poor heuristic.

On the actual policy, what holds up reasonably well from the old pre-war case is that the Clinton era “containment” policy on Iraq was crumbling. The endless sanctioning of Iraq was not a viable long-term strategy for the region. That left you with two kinds of options. One—the wrong option—was to get more aggressive. The other—the correct option—was to realize that the goal of military domination of the Persian Gulf is just fundamentally misguided. The project is motivated by fuzzy thinking about oil, and it’s been extremely costly over the decades. Protecting Kuwait from a direct and flagrantly illegal cross-border military attack is a defensible (though arguably not necessary) use of military force, but the whole rest of the undertaking dating back to long before Bush was a mistake.